Lake Campus athletics look to build ties with USCAA

For a small institution, Wright State University-Lake Campus has been making big moves recently.

Campus-wide expansion; exciting new amenities and educational opportunities for students; a new dean in Dr. Jay Albyyri; and a new athletics and recreation complex with an all-turf baseball facility in the works thanks to the Capital Campaign.

Recently, an already budding athletics program took a step forward when it was welcomed into the United States Collegiate Athletic Association.

The USCAA and its Board of Directors announced the additions of WSU-Lake Campus and Villa Maria College (N.Y.) on July 2, effective for the upcoming school year. Trent Kline, WSU-Lake Coordinator of Housing and Athletics, said the transition to the USCAA will open up a world of possibilities to Laker student athletes and athletic programs.

"There's just a lot of potential," Kline said. "You know, there's potential in the future to even look at athletic scholarships. There's some potential in the future to maybe look at (doing) something similar to what UNOH did with the NAIA or even as far as NCAA Division II or Division III athletics. Certainly that will take time if we get to that point, but those are doors that are now open for us."

The USCAA is composed mainly of small colleges, community colleges and junior colleges and has roughly 80 member schools nationwide. Every sport WSU-Lake offers - baseball, basketball and volleyball (returning for the first time this year) - will be USCAA affiliated, which will allow teams to compete for national championships. Student-athletes will also be in the running for individual achievements such as National Players of the Week and Academic All-Americans.

Kline said the continued success in athletics, new facilities, and educational affordability should be strong selling points for future students and student-athletes.

"When they see how affordable we are, how truly nice our on-campus apartments are, and then how competitive our athletics are, it's really kind of a no brainer for the vast majority of our prospective student athletes," he said.

Lake Campus ended its run in the the Ohio Regional Campus Conference (ORCC). The Lakers' baseball team had won the ORCC tournament two out of the past three seasons.

Kline said more athletics could be offered at the school in the future. He added that all the improvements, not just in athletics, should boost the schools' profile moving forward.

"With the new dean that we have on campus coming to us from IPFW, he's obviously seen firsthand what athletics can do for kind of a smaller campus. He's definitely on board and supportive of a lot of the things we're doing athletically," Kline said. "As of right now, with everything we've got going on, it's almost like the sky's the limit. We're definitely excited about the direction things are going."